I have read the news in the beginning of this month on Netcraft announcing the aquisition of The Planet, EV1Servers by GI Partners. Two giants in the dedicated hosting business rated fourth and seventh-largest hosting providers in the world, according to Netcraft’s Hosting Provider Switching Analysis, and the top two dedicated hosting specialists.
GI Partners was founded in 2001 with more than $500 million in financial backing from CB Richard Ellis Investors and CALPERS, the world’s largest public pension fund according to netcraft, and Its primary focus was the data center and Internet gateway sector. Today GI Partners is a leading private equity firm with $2 billion of capital under management. The combined entity will further develop both the EV1 and The Planet brands, supporting over 20,000 clients and 50,000 dedicated servers. This combination creates the largest dedicated hosting provider in the market, which has the scope, scale and financial strength to deliver superior service levels and innovative product offerings to existing and new clients.
I don’t think the merge of the two companies will be a success in itself, but will certainly create the largest dedicated hosting business in the market and so try to have the leadership worldwide. Maybe GI Partners can justify the merge better, but merging two succesful companies will certainly be successful without lot of risk. What could have higher benefit is the merge of companies which have the qualification, and the good administration necessary to be successful but didn’t find the good investors to put it on the right way.
Dedicated Hosting companies should now get more ready to face the competition which was already very hard, now that two of leaders companies in the market get merged. Should find new strategies, new ideas, new clients or new investors ? I think a marriage of all will work very well.
